https://www.garbageday.email/p/is-the-web-actually-evaporating
"Buried down in a recent
CNN piece about how the Biden administration is
struggling with the complex generational politics of the current conflict in
Israel and Palestine is an interesting tidbit about TikTok: “[The White House
is] warily monitoring developments like how the Chinese government-controlled
TikTok algorithm just happens to be prioritizing anti-Israel content on the
social media platform preferred by many under 30.”
This is, of course, very dumb and a waste of everyone’s time, but I’m glad the
Democrats are finding ways to keep busy. As
NBC News reporter Ben Collins
snarked, “Blame TikTok. That'll surely win the kids back.” That said, I do
think it speaks to a larger misunderstanding about TikTok — and the greater
internet — that is being brought into better focus because of the fighting in
Israel and Palestine.
My big unified theory of the internet is that the way we use the web is
constantly being redefined by conflict and disaster. I brought this up in an
interview with
Bloomberg last month. If you look back at particularly big
years for the web — 2001, the stretch from 2010 to 2012, 2016, 2020, etc. — you
typically find moments of big global upheaval arriving right as a suite of new
digital tools reach an inflection point with users. Then, suddenly, we have a
new way of being online.
Unlike previous global conflicts, however, this time around, the defining
narrative about online behavior is not just that there is, seemingly, an
absence of it, but that it also still, partially, works the way it did 10 years
ago. Every millennial is experiencing an overwhelming feeling that, as
WIRED
recently wrote, “first-gen social media users have nowhere to go,” but that’s
not actually true. It’s just that TikTok is where everyone is and TikTok
doesn’t work like Facebook or even YouTube. Which is why the White House is
agonizing over the popularity of TikTok hashtags right now instead of canceling
my student loan debt."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
